Posts Tagged ‘pilates’

I did manage to weigh myself in the end…last week I was an unflattering 12 st 3.8 lb, which can only mean that back in France I was inhaling cheese in much the same way as drug addicts must inhale cocaine. Not that I would know; I just have a very active imagination.

This week I was 12 st 2.4 lb. A small but significant improvement.

I’m keeping up with the portion plate idea, and feeling better for it. Only today have I lapsed due to not having time to eat a real lunch.

I did actually start the dance and tone classes, which was immense fun as well as making every part of me ache afterwards. (Also, I do find it comforting to see other overweight people there – nothing worse than being the only fat person in an exercise class.)

So, yes, I’m fatter than I was last time I checked before the Easter holidays, but improving slowly. And I’m slowly on the road to being unfit, a vast improvement from extremely unfit.

I do feel that I have more to do on this front. In the long run, if we’re lucky enough to get the house we want (and ideally the school we want too), we’ll be looking at a half-hour’a brisk walk to school every morning and afternoon, with yours truly doing the return route too. So I suspect it’ll be less of an issue.

In the meantime, though I don’t want to get complacent, and I feel that one dance exercise class and one non-aerobic Pilates class isn’t going to cut much mustard. I like one friend’s idea of doing the Couch to 5k training programme, which happens to fit in beautifully with roughly the amount of time we expect to stay in this house. So that might be an idea. My other idea is to get back to the gym once a week, since they have a creche that smallest one can go to.

I can’t decide right now. Both plans have the flaw that they only work for as long as I can be bothered to do them; there is no I’ve-paid-for-half-a-term-and-I-need-value-for-money incentive, so both will require self-discipline. I’m going to go away and think about it. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Everyone knows that if you want to get to a healthy weight, you need to eat less and/or exercise more. So today I’m just going to get back down to basics and reflect on what’s going on for me in these areas.

Intake

This has been excessive, possibly more so than usual. I have a monstrous appetite. Yes, I’m still breastfeeding, but only a couple of times a day now. My appetite is disproportionately huge. It’s partly because I’m stressed about moving house. Nevertheless, after a month or two of not monitoring what I eat, I suspect I’m moving in the wrong direction. In fact, the only thing I have improved on and kept up since beginning this at the start of the year is drinking less alcohol.

I need to make a small goal and stick to it again, stress or no stress. For now, I’m going to focus on eating between meals. Unless it is planned as a social event, the only snacking I plan to do is my new weekly ‘graze‘ box; slightly better than the biscuits or chocolate I might otherwise resort to. And tasty too – have a look at some of the things in their box.

Till the stress lessens, I’m not going to try and curtail my eating at mealtimes as currently that feels like a sacrifice too far.

So. Snacking is out. We’ll see how that goes.

Output

I’m still doing my Pilates classes, which are great for improving strength and stability, but they really are not helping me to lose my excess weight. Clearly I need something a little more cardiovascular.

The Pilates is working as I have to keep it up every week, having paid in advance. I need something with a similar format, so I can’t duck out easily. I love dance, so to me the obvious answer is to find a local dance class.

Of course, it’s tricky when loved one is away so much. But Mondays seem to be OK. In the area, so far there is street/hip hop, Zumba, and Irish dancing on a Monday night.

Can’t quite see myself blending in to a street/hip hop class, particularly when the instructor is a hip and happening young dude and I’m an overweight, unfit, untrendy thirty-something. Irish dancing sounds like fun, but for now I’m going to contact the Zumba instructor and see if she has any space…

I have no idea what Zumba is about, though I gather it involves dancing in an aerobic manner. Sounds great. Gonna give it a try. I mean, look at the picture from the website.

So. Two small measures to gradually improve my intake and output. I’ll let you know how I’m getting on in a few weeks time.

I think it’s been about three weeks since i decided to cool off about the weight loss thing.

For now, I’m glad I did. Sleep is proving elusive with all the house moving shenanigans.. Indeed I am only finding the time to blog because I can’t get back to sleep. This is not helping my immense appetite.

I have also been using up my gym days house hunting, a full day’s job since where we want to move is an hour and a half away. So the exercise thing has been tricky.

I didn’t get to the gym back on Wednesday, nor could I bring myself to go power pramming – the thought is currently too alien to me. Instead I went for a short, brisk walk with smallest one in the buggy. Only a mile and a half but I felt better for it.

Then, yesterday I had a lovely long country walk with a friend and smallest one in the sling. I worked out the distance later and it turned out to be three miles. I was rather chuffed with that.

A friend has passed on a tip about running with the help of the couch to 5k initiative which also sounds like a good option to try for times when I do have childcare. Once i’ve tried it I’ll pass on the web link. Right now I’m phone blogging and a link would be tricky to pull off!

I reckon the best thing i can do about the whole exercise thing is keep changing it whenever things get stale and not allow myself to go for more than a week without doing something about it.

What’s not stale, though, is the Pilates classes which i am still attending once a week. The teacher is flexible so when loved one can’t be home I can squeeze into another class and catch up.

Looking forward to letting you know how I get on, another Friday soon…

I may already have mentioned this, but in an effort to be healthier, I’ve taken up Pilates once a week.

I’ve been to three whole sessions at the time of writing and about to go to my fourth, so clearly I am now an expert and ready to blog judgement in whatever way I see fit. Yes, tongue firmly in cheek, though I do love to expose my judgemental side when I can.

The thing about Pilates is that because it’s all mat work and there is no cardio aspect to it, you can leave the class feeling like you didn’t really achieve anything. It’s remarkably relaxing and there’s more than a hint of yoga hidden in there.

Yes, those ab curls were a bit of a struggle, but they didn’t have you fit to bust a gut. And since I’m unfit and my gut is ready to bust out any time it gets a chance, this type of exercise really must be low impact.

And then I wake up the next day and feel the ache in my muscles as I haul myself out of bed, and realise that perhaps I hadn’t been wasting my money after all.

After three classesI am finally aware of my stomach muscles. (It’s been a good eighteen months since I was last able to say that. Admittedly these muscles are under layers of fat a whale would be proud of, but it’s a start.)

Here is the type of Pilates I do. If you’re interested in checking it out, please do.

Young, old, fat, thin, they’re all in my class…and they all fit in just fine. A revelation in exercise classes: no snazzy sports outfits or people so fit you turn green with envy, just a bunch of real people trying to get a little bit healthier.